articleScienceMar 23, 2017Closed access

Grain boundary stability governs hardening and softening in extremely fine nanograined metals

Chinese Academy of Sciences · Institute of Metal Research · +5 more institutions

PubMed
Indexed incrossrefpubmed

Abstract

Conventional metals become harder with decreasing grain sizes, following the classical Hall-Petch relationship. However, this relationship fails and softening occurs at some grain sizes in the nanometer regime for some alloys. In this study, we discovered that plastic deformation mechanism of extremely fine nanograined metals and their hardness are adjustable through tailoring grain boundary (GB) stability. The electrodeposited nanograined nickel-molybdenum (Ni-Mo) samples become softened for grain sizes below 10 nanometers because of GB-mediated processes. With GB stabilization through relaxation and Mo segregation, ultrahigh hardness is achieved in the nanograined samples with a plastic deformation mechanism…

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